Don't conflate the US and the "west".
I only vaguely said “the West” because I didn’t want to get into the complexities of subsistence farming, regional quirks, and pedantics like “soybeans hulls are often considered roughage”.
About a third of beef in the world is truly grass finished and two thirds of that is subsistence farmers who can’t afford the grain. Most of the rest comes from Australia, Brazil, and New Zealand because it’s more competitive to leave them in pasture than import the grain.
As much as you may want to hold your nose up at the US, the (vast) majority of beef sold in the world is grain finished and has been for a long time. It’s just more economically competitive and people strongly prefer the taste and texture.
...and _people in the USA_ strongly prefer...
Although, I don't know how solid the evidence for even that statement is.
Then in the first half of 1800s a bunch of American farmers with an abundance of corn independently discovered that they could grow bigger cows for slaughter in half the time if they fed them grains instead of roughage like hay or grass. That idea quickly spread to Europe and by the time the green revolution and globalization rolled around in the second half of the 20th century, almost every body started doing it.
This isn’t some new phenomenon. It predates the globalization of agriculture and if you were to ask a random farmer around the world whether they feed their cows a ton of grain they’d look at you like you were asking a very stupid question.
It’d be like asking “do plants need fertilizer?” Yes. If you want to feed the world, yes they do.
The parent questioned whether the use of grain for finishing was down to a demand based on consumer taste preference.
You've done nothing that would move them from their position of questioning the evidence here.
The detail you do provide shows grain feeding increases yield for farmers, which would be an indicator that it is financial benefit to herd owners that drives the use of grain; potentially moving away from your assertion.
Angus beef is very popular in UK, I'm relatively sure it's grass fed?
I don't. I just take issue with your grouping.
For what it's worth I grew up in a country that would be considered western where grass-fed is the default.
> ...and _people in the USA_ strongly prefer...
Although, I don't know how solid the evidence for even that statement is.
Is completely incoherent in the context of the thread and I just did my best to answer the two words “solid evidence.”
However you make a good point. There is a chicken and egg problem here between consumer taste and farmers optimizing their yield. I don’t have an answer, but I invite you to compare them yourself, if you ever get the chance to eat grass finished beef versus a high end ribeye. Or something like wagyu/kobe where they’re fed almost exclusively rice mash or grains.
As for “angus beef” no that doesn’t mean anything. The US/UK/EU don’t have any meaningful regulations about those marketing terms.
Where exactly did you grow up? Without that detail “grass fed” is as meaningful as “cow goes mooooo”
For the record, I also think calling grass-fed beef gamey, metallic, and saying it's unlikely to be popular (like the top-level reply did) is an overstatement. The most prominent thing is the different coloured fat. The taste isn't hugely different, probably because our grass-finished beef still gets enough feed.
Ah, well it seemed cogent and straightforward to me: the OP suggested that your indication that grain feeding was driven by consumer taste preference seemed to lack evidence.
It seems like something that will have been tested (certainly for low-n values), it also seems likely to vary by culture/region substantially.
One of my "if I were in charge" ideas is for origin marks that provide all information about inputs into any product made available for sale. Under sight a system one could look up whether the farmer bought grain feed.
I don't understand why you would write something like that in response to a pretty normal discussion. The whole point was that I don't care what feed the beef was finished on.